We chat with Wednesday 13 ahead of his headline set on the SOPHIE stage at Bloodstock.
We get a preview of what the band have planned for the set, he talks about his love of the UK and it’s music history, revisiting his Murderdolls works, writing new material and he looks ahead to playing with John5.
You can listen to the interview below, or jump over to any of the usual streaming services!
Norwegian folk metal outfit Trollfest has announced its tenth studio album, Trollywood, due November 6 through Reaper Entertainment.
The new record takes aim at Hollywood, celebrity culture, and the entertainment business through a story involving trolls chasing fame while the machinery around them begins to fall apart. Musically, Trollfest continues to combine heavy metal with folk melodies, large choral sections, and the band’s offbeat sense of humor.
Trollywood also sees the band leaning into a heavier and more aggressive sound. The album builds on the elements that have defined Trollfest for more than two decades while adding larger riffs, more expansive arrangements, and the chaotic energy that has become part of the band’s identity.
The first track from the album is “Day Drinking,” a hook-heavy song built for the festival circuit. Its release also comes with a limited physical edition: a yellow 7-inch pressing available exclusively at Summer Breeze Open Air.
An official video for “Day Drinking” is also available alongside the single.
Only 100 copies of the single will be produced worldwide. The release includes “Day Drinking” along with the previously unreleased B-side “Fire Fine Firfisler,” making it the first physical single issued by Trollfest.
After more than 20 years as a band, Trollfest continues to push its own combination of folk metal, theatrical humor, and heavy riffs. Trollywood is set to continue that approach while putting a greater emphasis on the heavier side of the band’s sound.
Anthrax have released the latest single and video, Everybody’s Got A Plan, from their long-awaited 12th full-length studio album Cursum Perficio out September 18 via Nuclear Blast Records and Megaforce Records (North America). The new video was mostly filmed on July 7 in Lisbon, Portugal when the multi-GRAMMY® Award-nominated New York hard rock titans – […]
Yale Gulley brings conscious hip-hop and introspective lyricism to HERE, a reflective track centered on resilience, personal growth, and self-awareness. The song explores the process of navigating challenges while maintaining a positive mindset and staying connected to a sense of purpose. Gulley’s delivery gives the track a direct and grounded quality, allowing the message to remain at the forefront without feeling overly sentimental. Spiritual reflection and personal accountability run naturally through the writing, creating a thoughtful balance between vulnerability and determination. HERE ultimately feels like a statement of perseverance, focused on growth, awareness, and moving forward.
Interview by Ali Williams WIN BIG may be one of the newest names heading to BIGSOUND, but there is nothing particularly calculated about how they got there. In fact, vocalist Finn seems just as amused by their inclusion as anyone. “We’re so new,” he admits, before asking the perfectly reasonable question of why the fuck they […]
Flotsam and Jetsam’s The Cold is getting another physical release, bringing the 2010 album back to CD and LP after years of becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Originally released more than a decade ago, The Cold showed Flotsam And Jetsam pushing their established thrash sound into more modern territory while keeping the characteristics that made the band recognizable. Eighties-style riffing sits alongside heavier, more contemporary passages, with guitar solos playing a major role throughout the record.
The album’s reputation has also grown in the years since its original release. After more than 30 years as a band, Flotsam and Jetsam had already experienced lineup changes, shifts in musical trends, and the difficulties that come with maintaining a career in metal across multiple decades. The Cold stands out because it found a way to sound current without abandoning the band’s roots.
The album was produced, recorded, and mixed at Phase Four Studios in Phoenix, Arizona, a facility that has also worked with Megadeth, White Wizzard, and Witherfall. Mastering was handled by Sonorous Mastering in Tempe, Arizona, while the artwork came from Travis Smith, whose credits include Death, Draconian, Exhorder, and Iced Earth.
The original CD and especially the vinyl pressing became difficult and expensive to track down, making the new edition a chance for fans to add The Cold to their collections without hunting down older copies.
The The Cold reissue arrives alongside a new chapter for Flotsam And Jetsam, who are preparing Rats In The Temple, their debut for Napalm Records. The band has already previewed the album with the title track “Rats In The Temple” and followed it with “Harvesting The Hate.”
Built around rapid-fire drumming and the guitar work of Michael Gilbert and Steve Conley, “Harvesting The Hate” serves as the album opener and sets up the record’s heavier material.
Frontman Eric A.K. Knutson says about the track: “Another heavy, dramatic beast of a song from our arsenal of madness. This one asks you to look in the mirror, to find the true problem in your life. And stop harvesting the hate!”
With a career approaching four decades, Flotsam And Jetsam established its reputation through records including Doomsday For The Deceiver, No Place For Disgrace, and Cuatro. The band has continued that run in recent years with The End Of Chaos, Blood In The Water, and I Am The Weapon.
The band’s live history includes tours across the world and appearances at festivals such as Wacken, Graspop, Bloodstock, Alcatraz, and Rockhard. That experience feeds into a sound that combines thrash metal aggression with power metal melody, fast guitar work, heavy rhythm sections, and Eric A.K. Knutson’s distinctive vocals.
Knutson describes the new album in equally direct terms: “This record is a BEAST, truly our best effort to date!! Do yourself a favor. Dim the lights, grab a drink, put the headphones on, and crank this up. You will not be sorry you did!!!”
Rats In The Temple moves through a broad selection of Flotsam And Jetsam’s influences. “Harvesting The Hate” and “Damnation” lead with big hooks before “Absolution” pushes further into thrash territory. “Blame The Knife” and “Rats In the Temple” put the spotlight on Michael Gilbert and Steve Conley, while “The Ghost Behind My Door” and “First on the Spike” combine classic metal ideas with a heavier modern production.
Elsewhere, “The Edge of Nowhere” builds tension before launching into “Last Rites.” Drummer Ken Mary and bassist Bill Bodily drive the anti-war themes of “A Taste For War,” while “Her Blood Your Pain” takes a more ornate approach to its guitar work.
The album then shifts gears again with “Anthem For The Broken” and “Going Down That Way,” giving Rats In The Temple a varied tracklist rather than locking the band into a single style.
For Flotsam And Jetsam, The Cold represents an important chapter in the band’s long career, while Rats In The Temple continues a later-period run that has kept the veteran act active and relevant within the thrash and traditional metal scene.
2026 sees Kris Barras Band celebrate a decade since their first album, ‘Lucky 13’, graced the airwaves. In the time since, the former MMA fighter and his band mates have forged a career in modern rock leaving many in their wake, their career snowballing into the behemoth it has now become, and ten years from that debut album number six ‘Monsters We Made’ lands this August.
Kicking off with the title track, they immediately leave their mark. Their brand of modern rock gets an overhaul, and the title track is a sleek sounding, polished number, full of hooks that will drag you in immediately and a radio friendly chorus you’ll be singling in the car for months to come.
Immediately stretching their legs, ‘Beautiful Lie’ opens with a raucous riff and banging drum beat but soon builds into more. Kris introduces a more melodic vocal, impressing with an expansive range and allowing the song to fluctuate between fist pumping rock and melodic masterpiece.
After another rock anthem in ‘Riot of One’ the band push the envelope further with ‘Unspoken’. Starting off with an acoustic guitar, Kris’ voice propels this song along into the ballad it soon becomes, complete with exquisite guitar solo mid song.
Throughout this records, the album mixes things up, ‘All Falls Down’, ‘Rewind’ and ‘Levitate’ all bring us back to the Kris Barras Band we’ve come to know and love, where as ‘Alive’ and ‘Beautiful Lie’ experiment with sounds that grow the bands repertoire. Then ‘Unspoken’ and ‘End of Me’ highlight a vulnerability we’ve not previously seen from the band.
‘Monsters We Made’ may well be Kris Barras Bands finest work to date. A well rounded record that mixes hard hitting tunes with melody and vulnerability that sees the outfit mature into a modern rock beast.
Swedish heavy metal titans RAM will release their new full-length, titled Against, on October 9th, through Metal Blade Records.
It has been nearly seven years since The Throne Within, an album defined by its spiritual and metaphysical themes. With Against, RAM takes a more grounded approach, focusing on the experience of being pushed beyond reasonable limits and refusing to comply. The album captures that moment of resistance “that fire of defiance, which ultimately defines its title and message,” as the band collectively states.
For the production, RAM reunited with their longtime collaborator Johan Reiven, who had previously worked with the band on Lightbringer (2009). Without their own studio, having sold Black Path Studios the band recorded at Studio Recordia in Varberg, Sweden.
“At first, I wasn’t really comfortable not being in my own domain,” admits singer Oscar Carlquist. “But Johan is a far better sound tech than me and he did a wonderful job. We recorded the solos in a cool new way, as we set up two amps, one wet with a lot of effects and one dry with no effects. They were both mic’d up separately and they played into the enormous recording room in Recordia that is 150 square meters, where we placed two room mics (left and right).”
The approach resulted in a rich, organic sound that enhanced the album’s overall character. Musically, both guitarists continue to favor bridge pickups, maintaining a sharp and aggressive tone. The equipment used on Against reflects a classic approach, contributing to a sound that feels both timeless and direct. Sonically, Against was conceived as a return to classic recording philosophies.
Drawing inspiration from the early works of Dio, MSG, and Sweet, the goal was to create an honest and unpolished sound. What you hear is what you get! In a music landscape increasingly divided into countless subgenres, the band positions itself deliberately outside of categorization. The title Against, itself, reinforces the band’s longstanding identity as nonconformists, viewing heavy metal as a form of sonic rebellion.
“We do not give a fuck about all these new strange subgenres popping up. We try to play heavy metal in its purest form. We try to hang on to the center of that energy, and we are completely uninterested in 99% of the metal scene,” asserts Carlquist.
As a precursor to the release, RAM delivers the record’s lead single, “Ghost Emperor” and an accompanying video.
Carlquist comments, “This is the opener of the album, a straightforward classic heavy metal song and pure RAM. Lyrically, it deals with how our power structures exist to conceal the true rulers, the ones we will never see or know, pulling the strings behind the curtain and controlling us all.”
RAM Live: 9/12/09/2026 Candelabrum Metalfest – León, MX 10/09/2026 TBA – Gothenburg, SE *Release Show 12/04/2026 Spectrum – Murcia, ES 12/05/2026 Peter Rock – Valencia, ES 12/06/2026 Upload – Barcelona, ES 12/07/2026 Urban – Vitoria, ES 3/12-13/2027 Heavy Metal Thunder Fest – Pisek, CZ 5/20-22/2027 Iron Fest – Ohmbachsee, DE
RAM: Oscar Carlquist – vocals Morgan Pettersson – drums Harry Granroth – guitar Martin Jonsson – guitar Tobias Petterson – bass
Anthrax have released the latest single and video, Everybody’s Got A Plan, from their long-awaited 12th full-length studio album Cursum Perficio out September 18 via Nuclear Blast Records and Megaforce Records (North America). The new video was mostly filmed on July 7 in Lisbon, Portugal when the multi-GRAMMY® Award-nominated New York hard rock titans – […]
Interview by Ali Williams WIN BIG may be one of the newest names heading to BIGSOUND, but there is nothing particularly calculated about how they got there. In fact, vocalist Finn seems just as amused by their inclusion as anyone. “We’re so new,” he admits, before asking the perfectly reasonable question of why the fuck they […]
